As more and more real estate firms look to automate their marketing materials, another large brokerage is turning to automation firm Imprev.
Edina Realty, Minnesota’s largest real estate firm (also a major force in western Wisconsin), announced today that it will provide agents with a white-labeled version of Imprev’s service, which creates branded content for listings, and the brokerage is calling it “a dynamic virtual assistant for agents.” Edina has dubbed the tool “Emma Marketing” in a nod to the company’s founder, Emma Rovick.
The tool is part of a larger “Emma initiative” to create a streamlined experience for Edina’s agents from the beginning of a transaction to the end and help them be more successful, the company said. With 2,500 agents, Edina Realty is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America.
In the past two years, several real estate companies have similarly used Imprev’s technology to automate their marketing strategy — NextHome and Re/Max are examples.
The idea is to help agents streamline certain processes related to marketing their listings — in particular, developing marketing materials for individual listings — and then driving leads and monitoring them for agents. When something about a listing changes, the service updates the information it delivers clients.
As of Monday, the service is available for all of Edina’s agents. They have access to the service’s cloud software and receive marketing materials automatically in an email every time they put up a new listing.
“Agents have countless demands on their time — they need to be tech-savvy, understand people and so much more,” said Sharry Schmid, Edina Realty’s president, in a statement. “Our goal is to help them navigate the complexities of their role by streamlining the manual, time-consuming pieces of their job and allowing them to focus on what they love.”
The technology will create separate marketing materials — for example, postcards, fliers, websites and letters — for four major milestones in the homebuying process: “Just Listed,” “Open House,” “Price Reduced” and “Sold.”
Along with the materials, the virtual assistant will give agents access to an Imprev marketing help center, where they will be able to ask questions about promoting their brand and nurturing clients.
“A brokerage is in the unique position of having a high-level view of all its listings and pinpointing marketing trends, successes and challenges,” said Renwick Congdon, CEO of Imprev, in a statement.
“That means brokerages like Edina Realty can effectively enforce marketing best practices for agents through automation, which sets workflows in place that implement the best practices of the best agents across the entire business.”
Schmid noted that Imprev integrates with other services the brokerage is adding to “the Emma initiative” but will not be announcing the particular changes yet.
